Kwasi Wiredu

Kwasi Wiredu was born on the third of October 1931 at Kumasi, in the Ashanti Region of the British Gold Coast, the son of an Akan-Ashanti Methodist family of the principal late-colonial Ashanti Akan-Methodist community. He was raised in the principal Kumasi Ashanti Akan-Methodist community of the principal late-colonial Gold Coast.

He completed his secondary education at the principal Adisadel College at Cape Coast, Ghana in 1951 — and was admitted to the principal University College of the Gold Coast (now University of Ghana) at Legon in 1952 in the principal philosophy programme.

He completed the bachelor's degree in philosophy at the University College of the Gold Coast in 1958 — and the master's degree in philosophy at the University College of the Gold Coast in 1959. He was awarded the principal Commonwealth Scholarship to the principal University College of Oxford in 1959.

He completed the BPhil in philosophy at the principal University College of Oxford in 1961 — under the principal supervision of the principal philosopher Gilbert Ryle.

He was hired in 1962 by the principal Department of Philosophy at the University of Ghana at Legon as a junior lecturer — and was tenured in 1967 as senior lecturer in the principal Department of Philosophy at the University of Ghana. He held the principal University of Ghana Department of Philosophy chair from 1971 to 1985.

He published the principal monograph Philosophy and an African Culture at the principal Cambridge University Press in 1980 — the principal foundational Akan-rationalist post-colonial African-philosophical canon — and the principal monograph Cultural Universals and Particulars: An African Perspective at the principal Indiana University Press in 1996.

The principal Wiredu 1980 Philosophy and an African Culture is at this day the principal foundational Akan-rationalist-and-universalist post-colonial African-philosophical canon — at the principal post-1980 critical-and-rationalist Hountondji-Towa-Wiredu critical-school post-colonial-philosophical academic community.

He was a principal founding member of the principal Inter-African Council for Philosophy at Brazzaville in 1981 — and held the principal Inter-African Council for Philosophy presidency from 1981 to 1987.

He was hired in 1988 by the principal University of South Florida at Tampa as a Distinguished Professor of Philosophy — and held the principal University of South Florida philosophy-distinguished-professorship from 1988 to 2010.

He co-edited with the principal philosopher Kwame Gyekye the principal Person and Community: Ghanaian Philosophical Studies at the principal Council for Research in Values and Philosophy in 1992 — and edited the principal Companion to African Philosophy at the principal Blackwell Publishing in 2004.

He was a principal mentor of three generations of post-colonial African-philosophical-and-academic students at the principal University of Ghana and at the principal University of South Florida across his forty-eight-year academic-faculty tenure.

He died at Tampa, Florida on the sixth of January 2022 of natural causes, at ninety.

He is honored here as the author of Philosophy and an African Culture.